President Obama has presided over policies that have resulted in horrific war crimes against civilians (mainly children), a corrupt corporatocracy, and a dragnet surveillance state. Yet in a last ditch effort to preserve his legacy, he is pursuing policies that will pacify the public’s view of his crimes, which are no different than most other presidents before him regardless of political party. We must realize that he will only pursue legacy policies up to the point it upsets his masters in the banking industry that installed him in office, just like most other presidents since Woodrow Wilson.

The argument given by Obama apologists leading up to the 2012 re-election was that if we re-elected him he would end the wars, the surveillance, the corporate/banking collusion, and the erosion of the Bill of Rights.

The line must be drawn at dead children. This is the commander in chief and he had every ability to stop these atrocities in a timely fashion. It is very important that we as a people distinguish between pragmatism and compromise. Being against the bombing of children is not being a purist; it is being human.

Eric Garner, a harmless man, who was strangled to death by a brutal police officer, has given me a simple answer to a question that other Americans have often asked me over the years, “why do you live abroad?”

At the heart of everything is the ongoing collapse of the middle class in the most highly developed countries. This is something that is destabilizing precisely those countries whose role has always been to stabilize the rest. That is the multiplier of all the other instabilities.

With the national spotlight focused on police violence over the last few months, it’s clear that every town has a Michael Brown.

As more tragic stories unfold, a pattern seems to emerge of police demonizing their victims. Whether it’s Darren Wilson literally saying Mike Brown “looked like a Demon” or claiming that the victim reached for a gun, the story is eerily similar across the country. Ezell Ford, Marquise Jones, and Cameron Redus all have similar stories, according to police.

Two LAPD officers in South Los Angeles killed Ezell Ford two days after Darren Wilson killed Mike Brown. According to police, Ford was approached during an investigative stop (Why was he walking down the street?). At some point in his questioning, Ford tackled one officer and the other shot him, and the tackled officer used his back up firearm to shoot Ford because Ford made a grab for his gun. Eyewitnesses tell a different story. According to eyewitnesses, Ford was rushed by police with guns drawn and told to lay on the ground. After complying, one officer yelled “Shoot Him” and Ford was shot in the back three times as he lay on the ground.